The story of the imposition of colonial rule and its impact on African peoples has been told at length in numerous volumes. A half century of European control resulted in the successful implanting of European capitalist infrastructure throughout the African continent. The degree of success depended on many variables–ecology, mineral resources, agricultural productivity, the absence or presence of white settlers, African cultural attitudes, European administrative acumen, and, to a certain extent, luck and chance. The main goals of the colonial system were to replace a subsistence economy with a cash economy, to spread Christianity and western education and to inculcate a western mode of thought concerning government and development. Like it or not, African peoples experienced escalating socioeconomic changes which emanated from vaguely understood sources, had unanticipated consequences, and transformed their ideas and manners. How did ordinary people cope in this situation? What was the range of their options? The papers presented in this special issue seek to address these questions.

The papers collected here originate from the symposium, “Grassroots Involvement in Modern Africa,” sponsored by the African Studies Council of the University of Minnesota and held in Minneapolis on February 28/29, 1980. The symposium's central theme dealt with the question of how ordinary people operated within the context of the socioeconomic and political changes that took place in modern Africa from colonial times to the present era of independence. Ordinary folk–farmers, market women, clerks, laborers, domestic servants, beer brewers, drivers, school teachers, and the like–helped create their own history and restructure their own societies. They bore the brunt of the far-reaching changes which took place after the colonial conquest and they continue to do so to the present day.

In 1957 a dozen northern Mozambicane living in the Makonde highlands organized the Mozambique African Voluntary Cotton Society. By 1959 membership had increased to almost three thousand and output per grower far exceeded per capita yields of neighboring peasant producers. A year later the colonial state outlawed the cooperative. Portuguese officials claimed that it had become a hotbed of subversive activity. Subsequent efforts by the leaders of the banned organization to form a rice cooperative met a similar fate.

Despite its short life, the Mozambique African Voluntary Cotton Society played a significant role in the economic and political history of the colony. It was among the first independently organized African agricultural cooperatives in the country. Whereas its counterparts in neighboring colonies were almost exclusively formed to combat the exploitative marketing practices of foreign middlemen, the Mozambique African Voluntary Cotton Society also sought to protect its members from labor abuses inherent in the system of forced cotton production. As a grassroots movement, firmly implanted among Makonde peasants, the cooperative provided a hospitable terrain for covert anti-colonial activities while serving as a training ground for some of Mozambique's future nationalist leaders. Finally, its links to the cooperative movement in neighboring Tanganyika and to TANU (Tanganyika African National Union) suggest the significant, though generally overlooked, impact the British colony had on the growth of nationalism in northern Mozambique.

The significance of the Mozambique African Voluntary Cotton Society transcends the details of its own history. Like cooperatives in other parts of Africa, it permitted peasants free space in which to operate while simultaneously binding them firmly to the colonial-capitalist system.

During the colonial era, pre-capitalist social and economic institutions in Nyasaland (now Malawi) underwent profound change as the result of the incorporation of the country's societies into the world capitalist economy. This essay explores the change in the day-to-day relationships between men and women and between the elders and the youth in the Tchiri valley of colonial Nyasaland from 1906 to 1940. The development of cotton as a cash crop was the focus of these changing relationships. This study locates the principal dynamics of the cotton economy in local adaptation to the ecosystem, a process which accounts for the success of cotton agriculture before the mid-1930s and its subsequent decline. The peasantry which developed before the mid-1930s was later reincorporated into the world system mainly as wage earners. This altered all earlier gender and intergenerational relationships.

The history of peasant (or Crown Land) cotton production in the Tchiri valley falls into three distinct periods. The first phase lasted from 1906 to 1923, when it struggled for survival vis-a-vis the state sponsored plantations. The second extended from 1924 to 1935 and represents the prosperous period when peasants triumphed and the plantations failed. The third phase, 1936-1940, was the collapse of peasant production in large parts of the Lower Tchiri valley.

The principal dynamics of the peasant cotton economy were ecological. The Tchiri valley is bounded by a range of hills on the north, west and north-east and cut in a north-south direction by the Tchiri River which has its source in Lake Malawi. It is divided into two broad ecological zones: the rain-fed or mphala and the river-fed or dimba subsystems.

Therefore, the Union of Tanzanian Women will be: (a) An organization which will unite all Tanzanian women and enable the revolutionary ideas of the Chama Cha Mapinduzi on Socialism and Self Reliance and the liberation of women to reach them and be understood wherever they are (Kazuni Za Jumuiya Ya Wanawake Wa Tanzania, 1978).

First, you must intensify the struggle against us for the purpose of doing away with loopholes and laws that prevent equality between men and women. Second you must overcome mental attitudes imposed on women by social orders. As a result of social systems, women have become either slaves or flowers (Nyerere, 1976).

Men will have to learn to accept women as equals in social production and women must cultivate a new personality, a new consciousness of freedom and rebellion against male exploitation and domination (Tanzania Daily News, 29 Oct., 1976).

One of the greatest weaknesses of the UWT … is the incompetence of its leadership to penetrate to the grassroots level. … (Madabida, 1974: 18).

As the first three quotations with which this paper begins suggest, the rhetoric of “women's liberation” became quite acceptable in Tanzania during the 1970s with President Nyerere himself taking the lead in identifying existing inequalities between men and women as an impediment to socialist transformation. At the international level as well it had become clear–with the declaration in 1975 of a “UN Decade of Women” as the most obvious rhetorical gesture–that the neglect of women as objects of, much less as actors in development projects and programs was seriously undermining the success of such efforts, with negative consequences for development in general and devastating consequences for women in particular.

It has been said that, given the proper incentives, farmers in the developing world would “turn sand into gold” (Schultz, 1976: 5). This paper describes and discusses an instance which approximates just such a transformation. It examines the relationships between a shift in the economic base and concomitant social and institutional changes among the Anlo Ewe people of southeastern Ghana. Specifically, it examines changes in the organization of labor and access to resources that developed in response to agricultural intensification.

The data for this paper were gathered between 1970 and 1979 in the vicinity of Anloga (see map), a town of approximately 15,000 people in coastal southeastern Ghana. Anlo Ewe people have been settled in this area since about the mid-1600s. It is an area of sandy soil and sparse rainfall located on a narrow strip of coastal land between the ocean and a large saltwater lagoon. In their season, drought and flood have created difficulties for the Anlo for as long as they have been settled here.

Oral tradition indicates that the first representatives of what were ultimately to become patrilineal clans moved into the area from the east bringing with them an economy based on horticulture and hunting. Cattle, pigs and fowl were kept. Once settled, people began to fish in both the lagoon and the sea. Extensive trade with areas north of the lagoon has apparently always been a significant factor in the economy, with the Anlos trading fish, salt collected from the lagoon, and woven fabrics and mats for vegetable foods.

The colonization of Malawi produced a revolution in spatial relations among the inhabitants of the territory. Individuals in different parts of the country experienced colonization in different ways. These divergent effects were the result of three different spatial variables: the location of administrative centers, schools and—paradoxically, least importantly—the African population.

The process began in the early 1890s during the regime of the first British executive officer, Harry Johnston (later Sir Harry), who held the title of Commissioner and Consul-General. Johnston had little in the way of money or military force at his disposal and was obliged to act with extreme circumspection. The British treasury was, as ever, extremely reluctant to provide money for the conquest of the territory, forcing Johnston to rely on Cecil Rhodes for private support. At one point, he had to suspend military activities against the Yao chief, Makanjira, until Rhodes had replenished his coffers.

Given this constraint, Johnston undertook to defeat African kingdoms one at a time in a policy of divide and rule. This put a brake on the British occupation of the land. Johnston did not divide the country into administrative districts in 1894, some three years after the declaration of the formal protectorate. Johnston's first goal was to gain control of the major communications arteries, the Shire River and the western shore of Lake Nyasa (now Lake Malawi). He divided the protectorate into twelve districts, eight of them south of the lake and four extending westward from the lake shore. Bases in all of these districts would have provided him with a secure military hold on the territory.

Between 1967 and 1970 the number of squatter settlements in Zambia's capital, Lusaka, increased from 9 to 32, accounting for more than one-third of the city's population (Simmance, 1974: 503). In 1973, one in every two persons in Lusaka was a squatter (Andrews, Christie and Martin, 1973: 17). Today, people continue to squat in Lusaka despite a four year upgrading project (1976-80) sponsored by the World Bank. Although they certainly grew in density and number after independence in 1964, such settlements were not new phenomena. Rather, they have been part of Lusaka's socio-economic map ever since the town began to grow. The persistence of squatting exemplifies grassroots involvement by an urban work force that takes possession of vacant land and uses its own resources to create living space. The purpose of this paper is to examine some of the processes at work in creating and maintaining Lusaka's squatter settlements.

Squatting was a response on the part of ordinary people to the changing structure of Zambia's economy, beginning with the colonial era when Zambia became a subordinate part of a system of capitalist production. The administrative framework of ordinances and policies that structured rural-urban migration first impelled men to seek wage labor and gradually brought whole families to the cities. This affected the housing situation in Lusaka, colonial social policy and labor employment. Government and private industry interests were instrumental in shaping the urban policy which formed the background to the development of squatting.

As the scholarship concerning women's roles in African society and politics increases, it has become clear that West African women were active participants in the making of the histories of the societies in which they lived. Much is now known about founding ancestresses (Akan), queen mothers (Kanuri, Asante, Bamileke, etc.), women paramount chiefs (Mende), iyalodes (Yoruba), women's councils (Igbo)—although a great deal remains to be done. Not so much, however, is known about women's participation in anticolonial movements in the twentieth century. With the exception of the famous Aba Women's War (Perham, 1937; Leith-Ross, 1939; Gailey, 1970; van Allen, 1972 & 1976; Ifeka-Moller, 1973; Afigbo, 1966), the one women's anticolonial event which has attracted a significant amount of scholarly attention, little is clear about the women leaders who actively organized resistance to colonial policy which they considered inimical to women's interests or as key organizers in the struggle for independence. Still less is known about the organizations they controlled. Although the first generation of leaders in independent Africa paid tribute to the important role played by women in raising political consciousness among Africans, they mention it only briefly, rarely describing women's participation in their parties in any great detail (Denzer, 1976). Nor did the scores of political scientists who flocked to West Africa in the 1950s and the 1960s notice what women were doing in the way of organizing. Nonetheless the names of quite a few women of exceptional ability and understanding and the movements they organized occur frequently in the local newspapers giving evidence to their role. In addition extensive oral history collection among surviving women's leaders, their families and their supporters enables scholars to begin the task of reconstruction of the history of women's contribution to the anticolonial movement.

During 1939 a political crisis developed in Sierra Leone which had far reaching implications for colonial policy in British Africa. At the end of January workers struck the War Department defense works and the Mabella Coaling Company. Simultaneously some gunners in the West African Frontier Force (WAFF) stationed in Murray Town refused to go on parade, in army eyes an act of mutiny. In the midst of these events an intense campaign to rouse working-class consciousness began in the African Standard, the newly founded weekly published by the West African Youth Leagus (WAYL). This campaign focused on the wage-earning sector of Freetown, particularly the police and laborers engaged in essential works like defense construction. Editorial warnings published at the same times that Sierra Leoneans should not support the coming world war sounded a more ominous note as far as the authorities were concerned.

The colonial administration responded to these developments by initiating legislation, six bills in all, designed to suppress anticolonial opposition and contain the labor movement. While these bills were still under preparation, miners in the Marampa iron mines conducted the largest and best organized strike to occur before 1940, thus increasing the urgency of the situation. The administration hastened the drafting of its repressive ordinances and presenting them to the Legislative Council for enactment. In the meantime the Sierra Leonean community combined in a massive effort to oppose the bills, culminating in the largest mass demonstration against the government to occur in Freetown up to that time.

Several recent studies have contributed significantly to our understanding of traditional African medical systems (e.g., Peterson, in press; Ulin and Segali, 1980; Imperato, 1977). Concurrently, medical sociologists (e.g., Conrad and Schneider, 1980; Conrad, 1976) have examined the role of the American medical establishment in the exercise of social control. Their definition of social control as “the means by which society secures adherence to social norms” implies the power to impose a particular definition of the world on its members. This definition is central to the purpose of this paper, which is to describe and analyze in a West African context the use of prayers, amulets, and charms in the distribution of health services, and, at the societal level, their role in social control. In Dyula medicine social control operates primarily as a collection of beliefs, morals, and internalized norms all subsumed under the rubric of self-controls; and relational controls which include such every day interactions as gossip, ridicule, and group support.

The worksite for this study was Bondoukou, a city in eastern Ivory Coast that was, until the colonial reorganization, the largest city in Gyaman. The kingdom of Gyaman was founded toward the end of the seventeenth century by the Abron fleeing the nascent confederation of Asante states. From their settlement some ten kilometers south of the present city of Bondoukou, the Abron gradually extended their hegemony over the autochthonous peoples and the Dyula at Bondoukou who were all Muslims and mostly traders. The Dyula were recent settlers, having emigrated from the collapsing market city of Begho during the preceding half century.

Scholarship until recently has focused on the reaction to colonialism among African elites, often urban elites. Little attention has been given to the perceptions that rural people had of colonial rule and its many manifestations, including missionary activity. As a result, rural dwellers have often been viewed merely as carry-overs from earlier times, living in static societies. They have rarely been seen as adaptive and innovative peoples, coping with or, indeed, thwarting the colonial/mission intrusion.

This article on the Kikuyu of Kenya seeks to describe what happened among one group of rural people as they confronted changing conditions and new opportunities created by British colonialism and American mission activity. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that a great many ordinary people were involved in grass roots activity, activity that calls into question our common notions of rural, early twentieth century Africa.

When the African Inland Mission (AIM) arrived in 1903, they became part of the flux and motion that had been taking place in Kikuyu society for some time. The close control of leadership positions in the primary descent and territorial group, the mbari, and the age organization, the riika, sent ambitious Kikuyu looking elsewhere for challenge and achievement. Within their society a few were able to find this in the areas of magic and divination, but greater numbers were attracted to the frontier as settlers, where they established a new mbari with themselves as leaders. Others found sources of challenge outside their society, particularly in warfare and trade. This combination provided a lively relationship for some Kikuyu with other Mt. Kenya peoples and the neighboring Maasai.